Article Posted on : - Oct 04, 2008

NASA is also toying with the idea of a space elevator

TOKYO (BNS): Man dreams. Some live in their dreams, while others make it a reality. Every child’s dream is going into space. Who knows it better than Richard Garriott, the son of a NASA astronaut who wanted to follow his father’s footsteps? But his poor eyesight did not allow him to become one.

But today, he is able to realize his dream by flying into space as a tourist on Russia’s Soyuz rocket. Twice.

Something so daring is happening elsewhere, in Japan. For all of us who have visualized stairs to heaven Japan is planning to put a space elevator at a cost of $9 billion. The massive elevator will lift people and objects into orbit.

In a programme broadcast over Japanese radio it was mentioned that universities and companies were helping the country to realise the ambitious dream. Though the space elevator technology is at least 20 years away, it should get easier and cheaper in the future.

Sky and Space magazine editor Dave Reneke said that he was thrilled that Japan was investing time and money into a space elevator project. He said that the country was looking at a brand new industry that is at the stage where probably the aeroplane was in 1905. “The idea has been touted for a while, we just don't have the technology to put a carriage... or some sort of a control device where people can sit in and put them up into space by a ribbon. We need new technology and they are working on that right now,” Reneke said.

The magazine editor said that NASA was also looking at the idea in which a carbon-fibre ribbon, perhaps 100 km long, would be anchored to the Earth underneath an ocean. “It would be attached to an orbiting platform, such as a space station. The fact that the thing is circling the Earth means that its centrifugal force is trying to throw it out and that will keep that cable taut,” he said.

Reneke said that safety factors too have to be taken into account in the future for the project to be viable.